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by soresheep (orphan_account)



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: First Kiss, High School, M/M, Teenagers, i jus want randl in a john hughes coming of age preferably set during summer, is that too much to ask?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-27
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:13:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24406354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/soresheep
Summary: It’s excruciating when Link knows that theybothknow what was written in Rhett's diary.
Relationships: Rhett McLaughlin/Link Neal
Comments: 1
Kudos: 32
Collections: Good Mythical Self-Isolation





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**Author's Note:**

> thanks to mythicalsecretsanta on tumblr for once again killing me with such good prompts. i mean COME ON.....link finds rhett's diary??????? what a dream;;;;;;  
> also weird heads up, i was listening to shitsubo shita by josh lis while writing this (maybe u wanna listen while reading it...dunno)
> 
> not beta'd :-(

If Link had thought the crickets were loud inside of the classroom, he was wrong. Their buzzing and calling made his ears ache, but he tried his best to ignore the way the insects droned on. Instead, he worked towards uncapping the fizzy water he’d bought from the cafeteria on their way outside.

“Who told you?” Rhett asked as soon as Link popped off the plastic cap.

“Huh?”

“Who told you about me and Amber?”

Link didn’t answer him, he opted for taking a long swig from the bottle and let the bubbles burn his throat on the way down. He liked this pain better, felt much less internal.

That’s why they were outside, after all, leaning back on the brick wall surrounding the soccer field. The exact same one that Link had been on when he realised that dissimilarly to his best friend, he didn’t have an eye for girls.

The same field that he had then almost fainted on, mid-game, knowing damn well that _said_ best friend was watching from the sidelines, cheering him on and having absolutely no clue that Link had come to the conclusion that if he were to have eyes for anyone; it would most certainly be _him._

Link’s still in mild shock despite it being a week later. Time sure does pass slowly.

Link had asked Rhett to meet him on the oval after last period, he’d hinted in the hallway that he wanted to talk to him about something “important” to ensure that Rhett would show. It was a tender subject for Link; classes, for they had been separated two years in a row now. And they’d still not spoken about where they’d go for college, despite missing the recommended enrolment date for the upcoming year.

Link shouldn’t jump to conclusions, shouldn’t assume that _they’d_ be going together. After all, Mr. McLaughlin was keen on Rhett becoming a professional basketball player—and last Link checked, he’d not been good enough to even hold the damn ball.

Both the boys had had to endure a sixth period for the day, so most of the students had already left campus, leaving only them and a few wanderers to lurk around until teachers drove home and the seven o’clock cleaners locked the front gates.

“Was it Kyle? Did he tell you? I knew I couldn’t trust that jerk, I even told him I wanted to tell you myself.” Rhett sighed, lowering his head and staring down at his own unopened bottle.

“No,” Link gave in, “Kyle didn’t say anything to me. I… I heard it in the library, someone was gossiping in the next aisle.”

That wasn’t true.

He’d not overhead another student whispering about Rhett’s relationship with Amber, nor had he even visited the library in the past week; instead he’d read about it in Rhett’s diary. But Link knew he couldn’t admit that to Rhett, that the mere idea of Rhett knowing that Link knows Rhett keeps a journal would turn his face beet red, make him fidget and most likely run off.

And it would mean Rhett losing trust in him, for he had decided flipped open the leather cover and grazed his fingertips over the worn pages in the first place. Rhett had scrambled down the hall with his Walkman in a fist, declaring at the top of his lungs that he’d beat Cole’s ass since he’d been mucking around with it. Link was left in his room, unoccupied and unsupervised; which led him to the inviting pocket-sized book peeking out from under Rhett’s bed.

_Saturday, 18 th April_

_forgot to write yesterday but I called Amber after school and we almost talked thru dinner, her mom got on another line and told me to let her go eat. ha ha! best part was that she agreed to let me pick her up tomorrow and take her to the uni for lunch. gonna have to cancel on link but im gonna ask her to be my girlfriend. got high hopes :-)_

He’d only been admiring the messy handwriting, recognisable as Rhett’s, but then he’d flipped a few pages and Link’s eyes had focused and he’d started to read what was written — knowing full well that it was horribly wrong and would haunt Link later on. And here he was, lying straight to his best friend’s face while the back of his school shirt soaks in his own sweat.

“You didn’t see who it was?”

Link shook his head, finding that lying on his own lie came more naturally. “Nope.”

Two negatives equal a positive, surely that lets him off the hook. Right?

“If you knew already, then why’d you wanna meet me out here?”

Link brought the lip of the bottle up to his mouth, tipping his head back as if it would give him space from Rhett’s pressing questions—questions he hadn’t thought of an answer to.

By the time he’d recapped the bottle, too much time had passed without a reply and Link could feel them both growing uncomfortable.

It was just so hot. Link couldn’t think straight, although that could be blamed on his best friend’s presence and not the stifling humidity.

“It’s hot. Let’s go.”

“No,” Rhett insisted, jabbing Link in the shoulder with his finger when he tried to pick his lower back off the brick wall to walk away. “You got me all the way down here, throw it at me.”

“C’mon, it’s nothing. I know you like Amber—”

“—with Amber, actually—”

“—and you know Kyle didn’t tell anyone about it. And we both know that I know.” _And am clearly fine with it,_ Link wanted to add but fought back against the words coming up his throat. “What’s left to say?”

The crickets were back and louder than ever, this time accompanied with Rhett’s laugh that sounded almost like a jeer. Link’s head panged and he almost felt sorry for himself, for the way his dumbass got himself in this situation and if there would ever be a way out—that if ever in his life he would be able to leave Rhett behind and not think about him ever again.

He stared back patiently as Rhett’s laugh died down to a chuckle. Rhett was dangling his unopened water bottle by the lid, letting the tips of his fingers act as the last thread as it swung by his hip with each lurch of his body.

Link didn’t know where to focus his eyes. His sweat was becoming sticky and he could feel the tickle of droplets trailing down the back of his neck and past his shirt collar.

Rhett wasn’t laughing anymore, but he wasn’t talking either. Link thought it was weird, the way his friend was looking at him plainly. And all too suddenly it felt as if Rhett could see right through him; as if he had the ability to analyse the true meaning behind his words and actions, and it scared him.

“Say something.” He prompted.

“You go first, you’re the one who asked me down here. I had things to do after school.”

“Oh yeah, like what? Like actually coming to band practice when you say you will?”

It was a low blow, but Link found that the heat tingling in his skin wasn’t all caused from the summer sun. Buried deep down in the pits of his stomach, he was furious.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

For obvious reasons, Rhett cursing at Link only fed his rage. “Don’t—as if you can talk. What is up with you telling Kyle about dating a girl before me? Did you forget we were meant to be best friends or something?”

This time Rhett’s smile wasn’t kind, it was sharp and showed only a glimpse of teeth and Link felt his knees weaken—completely unsure as to whether it was due to fear or arousal.

“No one says _best friends_ anymore, Link. Or did you forget that we’re not twelve and no longer tell each other secrets in our makeshift pillow fort?” he said back with venom, practically spitting at Link during the delivery.

“I don’t—why are you acting this way?”

“Because you’re having a go at me when I clearly said earlier that I had planned to tell you myself.”

“But then why go to Kyle first?”

Rhett throw his hands up and the condensation that had formed on the outside of his Clearly Canadian flew into the air. Link briefly tracked the shining drops with his eyes.

“I don’t know! He was there and I was about to burst, I just needed to tell someone! It’s not a big deal, man. You’re blowing this way out of proportion.”

“You’re the one that brought it up.”

“Only because you asked me to come meet you and then you didn’t say shit, I assumed you wanted to talk about Amber.”

The fight was silly. But this proved to Link that his motivations were still unclear to Rhett, which quelled his fear. So, instead of changing the subject or resting a hand on his friend’s shoulder to apologise, he kept at it because Link found that one he got going, he wasn’t going to stop until he burnt out.

Link wondered briefly what a passerby would think when stumbling upon this scene: two teenage boys having a verbal scrap by the field of their school, strangely still perched calmly on the brick wall surrounding the dried-out grass, yellow and crunchy.

And he pondered if they’d have any clue, any whatsoever, that one of the boys was trying his absolute hardest to repress his feelings towards the other, and if by miracle they did, then if they understood, even the smallest bit, just how difficult that had been for that boy.

Link was tripped out of feeling sorry for himself again when Rhett took a step forward and pressed the cold bottle to Link’s chest, making him fumble for the beverage as it threatened to fall. Apparently, his silence angered Rhett further.

“Keep it.” He said shortly, before spinning around and trudging off towards the steps that led up out of the sunken oval.

Link watched the backs of his school shoes pick up off the ground and kick some loose grass along with it.

He didn’t want to look at Rhett’s back, where the hair at his nape began to curl, or outline the broadness of his shoulders through his creamy shirt, or even the way he knew his hands would be dug into his trouser pockets—as he did when he was being stubborn and childish.

He didn’t need to look because he’d had it memorised already. Had spent years pinpointing the sight and wondering late at night why it kept him up, or why his mind wandered back to it during a moment of rest in class, or why he even cared enough to remember the details.

Link stood there, nursing two chilled bottles of sparkling water that he’d bought for the both of them and wished to heaven and back that Rhett could just take a goddamn hint and figure out what a gift like that meant.

Within another context, if Rhett has been a girl, they’d be squirming, giggling to their friends that Link, a boy, had bought them a drink without them needing to ask. That he was interested and overtly annoyed at the announcement of them dating someone that wasn’t _him._

Instead, Link receives hard stares and absolutely no breakthrough. He doesn’t know how to suggest it any more than he has these past couple of weeks; and even now, blocking Rhett in on their school sports field, drinks in hand, confronting him about his new relationship status—he’s practically placing the truth right under Rhett’s nose.

It’s excruciating when Link knows that they _both_ know what was written in that diary. 

That fucking diary.

_Thursday, 23 rd July_

_had another dream last night and this time im mad coz its so stupid and I feel like a piece of shit now. gonna have to face him today and pretend I didn’t imagine him on his hands n knees the night before . so stupid so so so stupid. anyway had to write this before I pick him up coz I needed somewhere to let it out in case I try anything in the car. good luck to me_

Link set the bottles on the brick after realising he was clenching them so hard it hurt. He scowls at nothing but the ground.

The memory makes his insides twist and pull at each other; he can still feel the way his heart stopped when he came across that page, and how he was flushed all over immediately after tracing over the words. The mere thought that Rhett had had a wet dream over him had made his toes curl, then picturing the what was described had made him nearly crumble to the ground into a whimpering heap. 

Then he relived the way his blood ran cold when Rhett had re-entered his room, panting and trying to tell Link about how he’d almost hit Cole in the head with his deodorant stick but a slamming door beat him to it.

And Link remembered the way his words had gone over his head because all he could think about was the shakiness in his hands and how tight his pants had become, and that maybe he’d not been good enough at putting the diary back in the same position, that Rhett would sense the tension and know he saw the entry, or if there were more like that.

More about him written with tampered desire.

And Link was right when he’d predicted that it would haunt him—only not in the way he’d first intended.

Back to reality, Link takes some deep breaths and decides that it’s time he grew a pair and went on and faced his friend. He’s sick and tired of moping around and having to think of clever ways to let Rhett in on knowing he’s on the same page, metaphorically but once quite literally, too. Besides, there’s no time like the present.

Grabbing the bottles, he takes off against the yellowing grass and takes the steps two at a time, the only sound filling his ears were that of his shoes hitting the concrete and no longer the whining crickets.

Link dashed through the courtyard and into the locker area, heading straight towards Rhett’s to make sure his Chemistry textbook wasn’t taken—he knew he had a test tomorrow and would be needing it to study later that day.

The green book welcomed him upon opening the locker door. Knowing he was still in the school somewhere, Link’s first thought was to check their homeroom. He raced up the remaining stairs and whisked down the long hallway, taking in the way the sunlight flickered in his eyes as he passed by the installment of windows, counting the room numbers on his way.

His shoes screeched to a stop on the wooden floorboards. Link wanted to catch his breath before peeking his head through the doorway to check if Rhett was there—not wanting him to know that Link busted a lung trying to catch up to him.

Before he could move, a voice called out, “I can hear you dying out there.”

Link sighed. He wandered inside and took in the view: of Rhett sitting at his desk by one of the windows, one that looked out over the courtyard and onto the field. Link wondered if Rhett had made it here in time to watch him reevaluate his life and sprint after him.

Rhett had his feet on the ground but used them to push back so that he was leaning dangerously on the chair by balancing it on two legs. His arms were crossed, and Link could tell from his posture that he’d been staring out the window.

The sun filtered through the glass and cast stretched rectangles across Rhett’s lap and the classroom floor. He looked like a dream.

“Came back to spit out what you were gonna say back there?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow that made Link want to punch him square in the jaw.

He moved further into the room and felt brave enough to make it all the way to Rhett’s desk to that he could turn and lean his backside against it, facing the door instead of the window. It meant he didn’t have to stare at Rhett and that Rhett didn’t have to stare back at him, if he didn’t want.

Before opening his mouth, that was pulled tight into a disapproving line because Rhett had won, Link twisted to place the two bottles before Rhett on his worn desk. One was half empty, the other still completely sealed. 

“I’m sorry for being bratty…about you telling Kyle about Amber first.” Link mumbled, not turning sideways to look his friend in the eye. “It’s been a tough day and the heat only makes it longer.”

“I don’t care about that,” Rhett spoke with defiance, as if he’d just cracked a case. “I know that you didn’t either.”

Link’s head snapped to Rhett. “What?”

“You didn’t bring me all the way down there to tell me that you knew I was dating Amber. You could have done that anywhere, idiot.”

Link had twisted his body the whole way around at this point and was staring down at his friend, who lounged back against his desk chair. Rhett looked at ease, relaxed and as if he’d got it all figured out.

Meanwhile, Link’s mouth was becoming dryer by the second at the discover that he wasn’t actually ready for this. A year younger and with no balls, he let Rhett continue.

“You wanna know what I’ve decided?”

Link didn’t know whether he wanted to nod or shake his head. “What’s that?”

“That you’re a coward.”

“Jerk.” It was a reflex.

Rhett bent forward and let the chair stand with four legs on the ground, then he started to get up and Link found himself not knowing what to do. “Should have just told me. Plain and simple.”

“Tell you… what do you—”

“You left the ribbon on the wrong page.”

Link knew he’d been digging his grave this entire time, he’d even convinced himself that he was prepared for something like this, but the way his heart fell out his ass said otherwise because cold, gripping panic overtook him as Rhett stepped around him and let their knees touch as regained his height.

Link knew he’d made a rookie mistake. He trusted his gut enough to know that, and enough now to know that Rhett’s either going to sock him or…

Rhett placed his hands on either side of Link’s hips and gripped the wood, pinning him against the desk and bent down so that their faces were close, too close for friends.

_Oh, God._

“You don’t gotta worry about me telling Kyle ‘bout no more relationships, you’ll be the first to know of this one.”

Rhett surged forward and captured Link’s lips with his own. The reciprocity was immediate, Link pressing into the hard weight of Rhett’s body against his front and opening his mouth for him, letting him explore, letting him drink in the small vulnerable sounds Link made as Rhett sucked on his bottom lip and the tip of Link’s tongue.

It was white noise inside of Link’s head. No snarky commentary or nothing.

Rhett pushed on his palms and gave Link some space, only for him to follow blindly for Rhett’s mouth, eyes still closed and on the verge of a whine, before Rhett’s shoulder bumped him in the jaw and he veered back slightly stunned.

Rhett brought their Clearly Canadian bottles into view and handed Link’s his lighter one. Link could tell from the feel of it in his hand that the water had warmed and his was most likely flat.

They didn’t speak as Rhett cracked his open, the tight pop filling the air as he flicked the cap over his shoulder with his thumb and let it clatter to the ground.

Rhett tipped his bottle to Link’s—who held his statically to his chest in both shock and awe—and tapped necks.

“Cheers.”

**Author's Note:**

> halfway thru this i was like....hold awn, these stupid clearly canadian drinks can be used as a metaphor.....and so now i feel vaguely smart 
> 
> pls leave comments because they make me happy for weeks at a time n i really appreciate it. so fucking much. ok love u all <3 thanks for reading


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